ShipWrecked
by Bellemort2432
Summary: When Anya leaves on a cruise with her family, she could have never imagined the twisted turn of events that occur, especially the voices that call to her afterwards. She later writes them off on her concussion, but as the continue to call whenever she is near water, secrets are unraveled, and they may not be good ones. Vampires aren't the only ones with fangs...
1. Preface

Hey guys, so I'm starting this new story titled "Shipwrecked." I will also be continuing "Stolen Fangs" but, now, I have two stories on my docket! It does not have, persay, "vampires", but things very, very much like them. Seriously, if you like "Stolen Fangs" this is definitely worth a shot. I'll be posting the prologue through Chapter Two up tonight, and then (maybe!) another chapter of "Stolen Fangs." Hope you enjoy! Without further ado…

***Ace***

Shipwrecked

_**Prologue**_

_The poignant taste of salt accompanied by the constant, irregular sound of waves struggling against one another are the first things I become aware of. Second, the sore, clenched feeling of my arms and fingers as I cling onto the long, semi-triangular piece of metal that kept me afloat. _

_ I look around frantically. Where am I? I quickly realize the sight was not a comforting one; a vast, never-ending landscape of blue ripples is all that welcomes me, and as the waves came closer, they push more scraps of white metal around me. I swivel around in a circle again, kicking with my legs. My foot tickles something smooth, something soft. I turn around and see a hand bobbing along with the current. I try to scream, but my vocal cords are sewn shut with the salt water filling my mouth._

_ A head bobs up and through as a wave passes over the corpse, and I am immediately able to identify who it is: Kayla. My older sister. Her dark brown hair floats around her like a darkened halo as her face is eerily lifted up to face me. She bobs up and down as if she were standing on her two feet, up and down, up and down. It's almost rhythmic to watch, and I get lost in the motion. That is, until she is violently yanked downwards, underneath the surface, her hair blazing a dark trail above her head for the quickest moment before it, too, vanishes from the surface. And then the whispers start. The whispers that call to me. _

†_ † †_


	2. Chapter One

_**Chapter One**_

"_**Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."**_

–_**George Santayana**_

"The date, Miss Bellamy?" Mr. Kerger's voice pulls me back to the current task at hand: school.

I tap my pencil against my open palm. "Uh, I think it's the fifteenth?"

Laughter from the class follows. Mr. Kerger gives me a stern, disapproving look. "I was not asking for today's date, as you are well aware, Miss Bellamy."

I was aware. That was not the date he was concerned with. However, I didn't know the answer, and one of my rules to live by? When in doubt, laughter is a good route.

"Is anyone capable of providing the date of such a historically tragic moment?" Mr. Kerger addresses the class, my mistake fueling his already irritable mood.

A kid in the back of the class with excess pudge on his cheeks and round, monacle-like glasses raises his arm proudly, nearly jumping up and down in his seat. You'd think that by senior year, all of us would have lost our baby fat, but this poor guy seems only to have gained it. It gathers around his chin in a very unattractive way, and the small, unruly knobs of stubble he has sprouting from his chin only add to the overweight effect. We've never really been friends, this kid and I. He's never been very out-going. Ethan, I think his name is?

"The Titanic began sinking on April 14th, 1912 in the evening, and became completely submerged in the early morning of the following day." Ethan responded, his face lighting up with the excitement of knowledge.

"Smart ass," I mutter under my breath, and the people closest to me shoot me bemused smirks.

"Someone knows something in this class!" Mr. Kerger clasps his hands together once before launching into a lecture onto the tragic story of the Titanic, allowing me to drift back into my mind.

Cara, my all-time best friend, kicks me with her high-heeled boot. I eye her warily. She mouths "3-2-1" synchronizing perfectly with the bell that indicates our final period before lunch…and our final period before final exams. Then, after one hideous week of finals, follow two glorious weeks of spring break, which will include a cruise from the San Francisco Bay, around the Islands of Hawaii, and up towards Alaska, where my family and I will port and finish our vacation in our cabin.

Cara leaps from her seat, not wobbling in the slightest in her five-inch knee-high leather lace boots as she swings her bag onto her shoulder and tugs at my hand. "Sometimes I don't know why I signed up for AP History." She groans, giving my hand another tug as I collect my stuff.

"Wait, I do know why. It's because of your stupid peer pressure. 'Cara, take AP History with me. It'll be fun, blah, blah, blah,' you said. You're an awful friend!" She whines as we make our way towards the cafeteria.

"You could have said no." I say indifferently. Cara's not truly mad, and we both know it.

"And put up with your big blue puppy dog eyes the whole semester? No." She shakes her head, making her shoulder-length blue and black hair fly wildly. "No way was I ready to put up with _that._"

We slip into line, and I grab a slice of cheese pizza and an apple before paying and sit down, almost immediately joined by the rest of our group.

Emma and Colton sit down so close, Emma is practically sitting on his lap. Her beach-blonde hair slips all the way down her back, and although her eyes are blue, I swear they are the color of pink roses, because she is so crazy in love with Colton, whose green eyes barely ever flicker away from Emma. They've been together since Sophomore year.

Cara makes a gagging noise, very nearly choking herself with her forefinger as she sticks it down her throat. Damien sits to my left and bumps my hip with his own, taking a large bite of my pizza as he offers me his fork to steal some salad. I smile at him as he wipes his long fingers on a napkin. Damien is gay, but just barely came out about it last winter. He gets teased often, but I don't see the big deal. He definitely helps when I'm checking out a guy.

Leah runs up to our table in a hurry, nearly knocking the chocolate milk she has on her tray over as she bumps into Colton's back. We all look up at her and she smiles really wide, like those invisalign commercials where every tooth is shown.

"No braces!" I yell, smiling just as widely. Lead nods frantically, her brown bob swinging back and forth. She's had to have braces for all of high school, and just barely got them off in time for senior year.

"It's a miracle!" Colton throws a hand up, one hand still tightly wrapped around Emma's waist.

"Shut up," Leah mutters before taking a seat by him, filling the available seats at our table. "It feel so slimy to have them off. Almost like my teeth are fake, you know?"

I don't know. I've never had to have braces; my teeth have always been naturally straight. Cara, on the other hand, nods. "Definitely. It feels like moss in the water; super slippery!"

I chuckle. Descriptive analogies are Cara's unique way of speaking, and they are weird at first, but now they are comforting to me. It's like knowing that she's around, that her mind is there, that's comforting.

Damien comes back to my house after school to start studying for our Physics final.

"You do plan on bringing back a guy from this cruise, right?" Damien asks, subconsciously clicking his fingernails against one another. "Or two; one for me!"

I laugh. "Let's not be too hasty. I'm not really sure how many attractive guys our age will actually be on the cruise ship, or in Alaska."

"That's why you're stopping in Hawaii!" He exclaims. "If you're not going to take advantage of this opportunity, then I will. I'll just dress up like you and then flirt with all of them. There will be no single straight men within a hundred mile radius of me after that."

"I'm screwed," I tell him, keeping a straight face. "With you around, no guy will even look at me!"

Damien hits my arm. "Don't even pull that excuse out, Anya. You know you're gorgeous."

I'm not ugly, if that's what he was saying. I have really, really dark blue eyes and a delicate but square jaw, and my auburn hair is long and thick, but in my eyes, I look more like a Weasley than anything else. Or, at least, a ginger.

Damien disagrees. He says to be a ginger, you need freckles, really light skin, and orange hair. Mine just has a red tint, and I'm golden, not pale. The freckles aren't there either. Still, it doesn't change my perception of myself.

"Oh Damien, let's not get into this again," I groan as I flip open `my Physics book. "Let's just get this studying over with."

And so we do. Finals week comes and leaves me feeling emotionally and mentally exhausted, but the following Sunday I am driving from Santa Clara to San Francisco with my Mother, Father, and older Sister, Kayla, on the way to our first cruise.

I had no idea it would be the final trip I would take with my family.

†_ † †_


	3. Chapter Two

_**Chapter Two**_

"_**Are these real beginnings, or false starts?" –Juliet Mitchell**_

Kayla is nineteen, only two years older than me, but she is attending an art school, so she lives at home. My parents don't mind too much anymore. They used to really want her to do something extraordinary with her life, but then they realized that she's happy pursuing a career in beauty, and since that makes her happy, they are happy too now. It just means that the pressure is on for me. They want at least one of their two children to do something wondrous, like become a heart surgeon, or, even better, create a cure for cancer.

My Mother and Father run a chain of hotels in the California coastal areas, and that brings in a lot of revenue, so we're pretty well off. We just recently had our Alaskan cabin built, so when our cruise is over, this will be our first time staying there. I convinced my Father to let us get a husky pup up there, so we will all meet the new family member in a week's time. Kayla's the most excited of all of us to meet him or her. Sure, I'm excited, but the true excitement won't set in until I meet him or her. That's when it becomes real.

I mull this over as a female voice comes on over the intercom, and we are all herded into sections of the big cruise ship, and, soon enough, we are all one big mass of glaring orange life vests waiting for further instructions. For a long half an hour, the voice drones on as workers demonstrate what to do in case of emergency. I zone in and out of focus, and by the time we are all released to find our rooms, I nearly sprint towards the elevators.

We leave shore later that night with another intercom announcement saying that in two days' time, we will be approaching the large island of Hawaii, Hawaii. I'm giddy as I watch the ship slowly cruise away from the port, towards the vast ocean where there will be nothing but blue and the creatures underneath it all.

Mom insists that we go to the formal dinner the cruise is holding that evening, so we all dress up. I borrow one of Kayla's dresses, a deep plum one with flowering buds wrapped around it. As we're walking down the hallways together, a boy about my age dressed in a gray tuxedo runs past me, his shoulder sending me barreling into my Mom. He turns around and shouts an apology as he continues to run. His blonde hair flaps wildly on top of his head as he squeezes into the overloaded elevator, and a smile of triumph is the last I see of him before the doors close.

"Are you alright?" Mom asks me as I push myself off of her, already regretting the heels Kayla insisted I wear with the dress.

I nod. "Fine. What was that all about, anyways?"

"Someone's anxious to get to the dinner, surely," Dad says, clasping Mom's hand and smiling.

"I guess we know who's going to be getting their food first," Mom replies, laughing. I don't find it that funny; he really had to barrel right through me?

Of course, not three minutes later, when we make it down to the deck where the fancy dining room is, he is standing right in front of me at the entrance of the dining room with his family, bickering with a younger girl who has the same tousled blonde hair with natural layers of dark hair underneath. She hits him in the arm, causing him to take her in his arms and give her a brain scrambling noogie. She kicks out blindly with her feet, which are suspended from the ground, and hits him directly in the place where it counts.

He drops her and bends over, groaning. I can't help but chuckle. All of the things I have seen from this boy have led me to a mild resentment. He turns around to look at me once he has caught his breath, and almost instantaneously a spark of recognition kindles in his brown eyes.

He stands up and straightens out his gray suit jacket. "You know," He says, taking two confident steps towards me, "I feel this uncanny pull to you, almost as if I've seen you before." A smirk pulls its way across his lips, and I can't help but watch as I feel it grow along my own face.

"Boy who barreled past me in his unprecedented rush to the elevator. How would I ever remember a face like that?" I ponder sarcastically.

He shrugs. "Can't miss a meal. It's bad for your health." I look at him more closely, then. He has a splatter of freckles along each cheekbone, and some of his blonde hair falls along his forehead, but not in a shag kind of way. His brown eyes are caramelized, and I like looking at them, I decide.

"Chase," He offers, extending a hand. I look at it for a moment, then look back up at his face when Kayla's high-heeled foot kicks at my Achilles heel, indicating that I am actually supposed to say something in response.

"Anya," I tell him, putting my hand in his. He gives it one goofy, large shake that jostles my whole shoulder as the little girl, who I assume is his younger sister, pulls on his sleeve.

"Chasey! We're next, come _on!_" She pulls again, more forcefully. He smiles back at her.

"Alright, give me a second!" Chase turns back to me. "Anya. It was nice to meet you."

"A much more pleasant way the second time around, wouldn't you say?" I tell him, smirking as I release his hand.

He smiles, revealing two perfect little dimples. "I'll see you around, Anya." He turns away to scoop up the little girl in his arms as his parents walk through.

"Not. Even. Fair." Kayla says, grabbing my shoulders and spinning me around as Mom and Dad check in at the booth so that we can get seats. "We're on the first night of this damn cruise and you already have a fucking suitor. Un-fucking-believable."

"McKayla Bellamy," Dad warns, using her full name as he shoots glances behind us.

"Yeah, yeah, I know, no vulgar language in public. Got it." She grumbles as we march forwards into the over-sized dining room that is jam-packed with chandeliers, the smell of wine, and classical music.

"Don't be jealous," I murmur into her ear. "You'll get a guy." She stops and looks at me. "The tattoos mixed with the smell of diesel fuel and cheap candy will go really well with your strawberry shampoo." She gives me the glare that she gives when I've really insulted her; a mixture of mortification and pure, unbridled fury.

We love each other, but it's just so easy to poke at her. Kayla is just as pretty as me, if not more. It's just that most of time, guys are intimidated by her appearance; it's more the kind of appearance that you would look at on a CoverGirl magazine rather than strolling the streets of suburban California.

We are guided to seats right next to the large glass windows of the ship, and while it seems a privilege, I don't understand why people pay more to sit here in the evening; the only light you'll find is from the cruise ship, and the sea creatures are dark colored, so it's not like you're likely to see anything more than a silhouette, if that.

Still, it's a good distraction to look at the broken waves of water that the ship passes through as we wait for our meals. Mom and Dad chatter non-stop about snorkeling in Hawaii while Kayla talks about how great it'll be to paint and take pictures.

"You'll model for me, right Anya?" She asks, turning to me. "Complete with the whole backdrop of the sunset and the sharp blue evening waves in Hawaii, so it'll distract the viewer from your face…mostly." She gives me that evil payback look, but I know she's only teasing.

"Oh good. I wouldn't want to take away from the picture." I tell her, and Kayla smiles, obviously happy that I've basically just signed to wasting one day of our vacation on the beach, getting my make-up, hair, and wardrobe done with her. It makes her happy, though, and truthfully, the pictures don't turn out to be too awful.

The food is taking so long to arrive, and I've sipped through two glasses of sparkling water already, so I excuse myself and beeline it for the restrooms, which are in the far corner of the dining room. I turn a corner so sharply that I don't see the person in front of me before I smack into their chest. As we both stumble, I realize I'm looking into gray.

_Well, shit. _

Chase is underneath me, and as I prop myself up on my arms, he gives me an impish smile. "Anya. It seems like we're pretty even now."

Yeah, but we won't be if I don't get off of him soon, because my bladder is about to unleash World War III all over his pants. "Can I apologize to you in, like, thirty seconds? I'm about to pee my pants." I tell him, completely blunt with my explanation.

Shock definitely registers across his confident face, but he regains his composure and helps me up. "Sure. I can wait." I grumble a thanks and sprint the next twelve steps to the restroom, where I skid on the tile floor before making it into a stall and sighing with relief. That was a dangerous situation I just navigated through right there.

As I leave the bathroom, bladder completely satisfied, I see Chase leaning casually against one of the corridor walls, arms crossed, the gray suit jacket draped over one of his arms. He turns to look at me, and I flick the hanging droplets of water off of my fingertips.

"That better be water, and not your pee," He says, whisking one off of his cheek.

"You'll never know, will you?" I challenge. He shrugs; this seems to be a signature move of his.

"So, you definitely look like you're at least sixteen." He muses. I nod. "Good! That means you can come to the party they're throwing tonight. Sixteen and up, teenagers only…Do you know what that means?" He asks, leaning in. I stare at him, not offering a response. "No supervision."

I laugh, somewhat wary. "You're not trying to drug me, Chase, are you?"

"Nah. It'd be too hard for a sixteen year-old like me to get my hands on drugs." I arch an eyebrow. "Okay, not really, but let's be real. I don't really want you to fall on top of me again."

I full out laugh at that. For some reason, I trust him. "So, what do you say, Anya?"

I pretend to mull it over. "I'll have to get parental approval, but it sounds like it should be alright."

Chase beams and pulls out a pen from his pants pocket before grabbing my hand. "932" is what he scribbles on the underside of my wrist before blowing on it and releasing it. "That's my room number. Come by after you're all ready to go and whatnot."

"You want me to pick you up?" I ask incredulously.

"Well, I don't want to wait around while you put on your face," He says teasingly. I notice that if he weren't so charming, his words would be considered very rude. He pulls it off nicely, though.

I roll my eyes, mock-exasperated. "Alright. I'll meet you around ten?"

"Sounds good." He says. "See you at ten, Anya!" And he skips away. Skips! It makes me chuckle for so long that I am still smiling when I return to my seat, where my plate of pasta is waiting, steam coming off of it in curls. Needless to say, I dig in, the smile staying on my face the whole time.

†_ † †_

I'm knocking on the door to room 932 at ten o' clock sharp, fidgeting with my sailor-striped romper and flipping my hair over my shoulder. An older version of Chase opens up the door and looks down at me. "Anya?"

I nod. "Yes sir." Just then, Chase pops up behind him, a wife beater and black jeans over his chest and legs, and he looks so completely different than he did in his suit that I'm staring at him until who I assume is his father clears his throat, and my attention is shifted back to him.

"Back by one, Chase," He says, a warning tone in his voice.

"Okay, _Mom,"_ He says sarcastically before wriggling past his Father and slamming the door. Chase turns to look at me, exhales loudly, and says "Shall we?" While extending an arm playfully.

I look at his arm. It's very muscled, something that didn't show up in his suit. I thrust my arm through his, and as we walk to the upper levels of the ship, the captain comes on through the speakers, announcing that we've hit a rough patch of water, but not too worry. Apparently it's normal.

The music blasts so loudly, that I can hear it from three halls away, and I guess I involuntarily squeeze Chase's bicep, because he looks at me and says "Don't worry, I'll keep you by my side the whole night so you don't stumble on top of anyone else." He flashes me a goofy grin that makes me melt, and I nod, happy with the particular arrangement.

The guy at the door stamps our hands—which I don't understand; it's a cruise ship, where are we going to go?—and Chase tows me through the entryway, and suddenly I'm surrounded by many other teenagers in revealing clothes swaying to the music under neon strobe lights that make me feel disoriented. Chase pulls me closer by my hips and we're dancing close to each other. I laugh, throwing my head back, the music and the lights pushing energy into my veins, and I'm so happy to be close to Chase, to all these other people that are feeling the same way I am.

I slide my arms around his neck, and he wraps his arms tighter around my waist so his hands are clasped behind my back. I tilt my head up to look at him and wonder how, just a couple of hours ago, I had resented him. "Why were you in such a rush earlier today?" I yell up at him. He looks down, a small frown on his lips.

"I had something to do before I met up with my family. Just had to say hi to someone."

He looks away, but I reach up with my hand to cup his chin and bring it back to look at me. He smiles down at me, and I see him lean down towards me the slightest bit, so I close the distance between us and meet his lips.

My first thought while I'm kissing him is that Damien is going to be so jealous. And that I couldn't call him, because I am floating, sailing through the ocean, kissing a boy who wants to kiss me. The second, more startling thought is that Chase tastes salty, like seawater, like _fish. _Strange, because his breath doesn't smell like fish; it's just the way he tastes, like he's spent a million years in salt water and the salt is now ingrained into every pore…like he is a part of the sea. It's not unpleasant, it's just not what I was expecting, and I turn over this thought in my head as his lips part, forcing mine to too, and we fall into a slow, rhythmic pace of kissing that is just right.

Apparently we've been kissing for awhile, because a small circle forms around us, ooh-ing and ahh-ing like it's a spectacle to watch two people kissing. I pull away first, conscious of the crowd of people we've unintentionally gathered, and look up at him. Chase smiles down, telling me "I've wanted to do that every time we've run into each other."

"Why didn't you?" I ask him, pulling back just a little as the crowd dissipates so we can dance in a public yet private setting.

"It's not very, oh, what's the word?" He pauses and crinkles his brow, concentrating. "Chivalrous, to kiss a woman you have just met. I am very pleased you have broken the barrier, though."

His speech has just reached incredibly formal heights, as if we were discussing a business deal. "Well, I am very pleased I did that also," I say, trying to match his language.

He chuckles. "Sorry about that, I didn't mean to talk like that. It's just that I speak that way with my family, so it's hard to forget that I don't have to speak that way, you understand?" I nod. "Good. I'm not trying to be creepy or anything." He tells me, and he sounds like the Chase I've gotten to know in these couple of hours we've been acquaintanced .

He leans in for another kiss just as the ship lurches to the side, and the ground falls out from beneath my feet.


	4. Chapter Three

Hey guys! Sorry it took so long to write this; I'm back in school now, so things are going to be even more slow going than before. But, hopefully, you'll still want to read this. I got a new computer, too, so it's going to take some adjusting. The new computer is definitely better, though!

***Ace***

_**Chapter Three**_

"_**Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before" –Edgar Allen Poe**_

I'm aware of a shocking burst of pain in my hand as someone steps on it. Then, I'm aware of many someones screaming, shrieking, chaos enveloping everything around me.

"Report immediately to the emergency lifeboats. Check your wristbands for the correct sector and wait to get boarded in a calm manner. Everything is going to be alright." I hear the captain's voice over the intercom, followed immediately by a girl shrieking "We're sinking!"

Opening my eyes, I look up at Chase, who is waiting for me. Apparently I hit my head, because my left ear is flush against the ground, and Chase is sideways. "Anya, we've got to go." I nod and let him pull me to my feet before we're swept away in the mass of people scrambling to get to either side of the ship. I check my wristband: C19 is my sector. Chase is C24, so we scramble as fast as we can through the hallways, the floors, until we get to the C sector. "I'll get you where you need to go, and then I've got to go find my family," Chase yells in my ear. I nod, grateful that I have someone with me.

Until now, I hadn't actually realized what this all means. _The ship is sinking. _I search in a manic for my family once we reach C19, pushing through the throng of frantic people. I catch a glimpse of Kayla's unruly bed-head ponytail and I run towards it with ardour. Chase follows after me with on trouble pushing through the people, unlike me.

When I reach Kayla, I wrap my arms around her waist and hug her as tightly as I can. She screeches and turns around in my arms to see it's me before returning my hug. "You never should have gone out tonight." She scolds in that sisterly way that blossoms in dire occasions such as this one.

"Yeah, because I really knew that the ship was going to sink," I tell her sarcastically, forgetting about the impending doom. I turn to thank Chase, but he is already gone, and I ardently hope that he finds his family as quickly as I found mine.

Another lurch comes over the ship and tips the starboard side-the side I'm on-bowing down towards the black water. I screech, pulling Kayla towards Mom and Dad so that we can all huddle together.

As the ship rights itself again, and I try to steady my heartbeat and cease the constant flow of adrenaline being pumped into my blood vessels, one last push is given from the port side, almost as if something were pushing the boat over. It sways, the black water pulling the starboard side down, almost as if it were beckoning to us. I let out a blood-curling scream as Kayla, Mom, and Dad are wrenched away from me, and I am left clinging to the railing as the cruise ship, in all its enormity, keels over us all, and it doesn't matter whether I'm clinging on to the railing or not, whether Mom and Dad and Kayla were flung off of the safety of the ship, because, now, with the ship completely tipped, we're _all _underwater.

†_ † †_

The poignant taste of salt accompanied by the constant, irregular sound of waves struggling against one another are the first things I become aware of. Second, the sore, clenched feeling of my arms and fingers as I cling onto the long, semi-triangular piece of metal that kept me afloat.

I look around frantically. Where am I? I quickly realize the sight was not a comforting one; a vast, never-ending landscape of blue ripples is all that welcomes me, and as the waves come closer, they push more scraps of white metal around me. I swivel around in a circle again, kicking with my legs. My foot tickles something smooth, something soft. I turn around and see a hand bobbing along with the current. I try to scream, but my vocal cords are sewn shut with the salt water filling my mouth.

A head bobs up and through as a wave passes over the corpse, and I am immediately able to identify who it is, even though the sun is just barely peaking over the horizon: Kayla. My older sister. Her dark brown hair floats around her like a darkened halo as her face is eerily lifted up to face me. She bobs up and down as if she were standing on her two feet, up and down, up and down. It's almost rhythmic to watch, and I get lost in the motion. That is, until she is violently yanked downwards, underneath the surface, her hair blazing a dark trail above her head for the quickest moment before it, too, vanishes from the surface. And then the whispers start. The whispers that call to me.

They whisper my name, over and over. Various voices, male and female, high and low, but all melodic, all so incredibly soothing, so wonderful. I could just fall into the sound, harmony all put together as they whisper "Anya."

_No!_ I shake my head, and a small red dot flies into the ocean, becoming watery. I touch my hand to my head and it comes away red, some of the blood coagulated and crusty, but the buff of it is new, crimson. "Ouch," I say, my speech slurred.

_I must have a concussion, _I think warily, but it doesn't truly register in my mind. The voices continue, but they are not as alluring as they were before. When digits start to touch my legs, like little, sharp whispers, like fingernails, the voices take over completely and my vision goes black.

†_ † †_

It's strange how much can go on around you without your knowledge. I'm semi-aware of blades spinning, kind of like a helicopter, and urgent shouts, voices that are in the heat of the moment. But I don't become fully, truly aware until the constant beeping of something annoys me back into consciousness.

"Stop it!" I try to scream, but it comes out as a weak slur. Damien is holding my hand, perched on the side of a bed that is not mine. The sheets are too thin, too flimsy, and it smells like a hospital.

"That's because you're in a hospital," Cara quips from beside me. I guess I said that last thought aloud.

Cara stands with one hand on her hip, her silhouette blocking the heart monitor, which has got to be the source of that incessant beeping. Emma and Colton are sitting down-in one chair-holding hands and watching wide-eyed as I wake up.

"Where's Leah?" I croak. Obviously my voice is not in the best shape.

"Running late. She'll be here in a little while." Colton answers, rubbing his jaw.

"And my family?" I ask. Damien's grip on my hand weakens, and the four of them all look at each other, completely avoiding my gaze. Emma dares a glance at me for the smallest moment before looking back at Cara pleadingly.

"Oh, honey," Cara says finally, pulling up a seat to the edge of the bed. She pats my hand, as if that's reassuring.

"Are they running late also?" I ask, looking at Emma. I can see, even from this far away and through my blurry vision that tears gather in her eyes.

"They can't come, Anya." Damien whispers. "They're not here anymore."

I look at him, confused. "So they were here earlier? Of course they're not here when I wake up. That's so great. Thanks, Mom." I roll my eyes.

Emma bolts out of the room, her face in her hands. Colton looks after her, but runs a hand through his hair and comes to stand at the edge of the bed.

"Anya, do you remember what happened? Why you are here?" He asks me, his green eyes probing mine.

"I-" I what? I was on the cruise ship, dancing with Chase, _kissing _ Chase, and then…_the ship lurching, chaos, panic, C19, Kayla…_

Kayla. Her hair was around her face in the water, her once sapphire blue eyes now pale and lifeless, and then the immediate yank that pulled her underneath the waves. The large, white pieces of metal that came off of the cruise ship when we were sunk. The fingernails scraping at my legs, tickling me, the voices whispering my name.

"No," I whisper. This couldn't be happening. There was no way this could be happening.

"Helicopters came and picked up all of the remaining survivors. Neither your parents nor Kayla were found." Colton says quietly, looking down at his hands as they grip one of the plastic bumpers that are supposed to keep me in the bed if I thrash. It feels like I'm a bowling ball, stuck in between the kid bumpers they put up so there's almost no way you can lose. _Almost._

"I have no one?" I croak. No grandparents, no aunts, uncles, living siblings, anything. I am alone.

"No, honey, you're not alone. You know you're parents appointed my parents as your legal guardians if something ever happened to them." Cara says, squeezing my hand. "You're coming with us."

Relief and dread floods through me. I get to go live with Cara. Her parents are like my second parents; it shouldn't be too weird on that part. I even have my own room at their house. But I'll never get to go back to my home again, I'll never get to tease Kayla. I'll never get to see my parents again.

And that's when it hits me. I'm an orphan.

The grief is too much, and the last things I hear are the heart monitor going wild and Colton yelling for a doctor.

†_ † †_

Six days after I have initially woken up, I am discharged with antibiotics for the amount of brine I swallowed and for the deep, jagged opening I have along the side of my stomach, starting from my ribcage and descending to just above my thigh. The doctors think it's from when I was knocked off of the ship; I must have scraped my side along the railing, or a nail, or something. I was lucky, though; if it had gone three inches deeper, I would have punctured a kidney.

Since it still hurts to walk, and I've been put in a wheelchair for the duration of my healing, Cara's parents drive us back to their home…or, my home. They've been stopping by my place and gathering all of my belongings so that I don't have to move it all. It's a sweet gesture, but the house is in my name now. I'm going to keep it, despite my mother's lawyer's urgings to sell it and get more profit.

I've inherited everything, really, because Kayla isn't here anymore to inherit any. I have her stuff now, too. I just have to finish off the school year, and then I'll be off to college.

With one week left of Spring Break, I don't know what I'm going to do. I have already called the Husky breeders, and they are sending my new puppy down to me. She should be here tomorrow. Cara is more excited than I am; she researched one of the Native American tribe's languages, the Cheyanne people, and discovered their word for wolf is "Honohe." She has already begun to call the new husky by that name, even though she hasn't even arrived yet.

Everyone has come to visit me, from my group of friends to crazy popular people to the nerdiest chess club you can find in my high school, but none of it means anything. Their condolences don't bring back my family. They don't explain why I lived, and they didn't.

Jayden, one of the popular girls, came by to visit, and when she saw me in the wheelchair, put on this incredibly fake bravado that was all for the benefit of the boys who came with her. "Poor thing! So, are you stuck in that thing forever?" She asks, pointing a delicate finger at one of the back wheels. "No matter. I will _totally _help you look fabulous if you are. You'll be like my own personal charity case!" And just like that, she had transformed an accident that didn't concern her at all into something that she could make better, that could make _her_ look better. It was astounding. "Nah, just until my side is feeling better. Thanks for the offer, though." I tell her kindly before wheeling backwards and slamming the front door as hard as my wheels could muster. I actually managed to re-open the wound along the side of my body, and Cara's Mother, Lily, rushed me to the hospital to get more stitches. That incident bought me four more weeks incapacitated. Luckily, those last four weeks were on crutches, not in a wheelchair.

Three weeks after school started and Honohe arrived, I was cleared to use crutches instead of my wheelchair, which I had gotten pretty deft at using. Presently, I haven't been cleared from my concussion, but it's not too bad, except for the wake-up call migraines and the inability to refocus my eyes after daydreaming. A positive outcome of the concussion-and the fact that I'm an orphan-is it gives me a lot of leeway in school. I could not do any assignments and still pass my senior year. However, the work provides a distraction from my messed up reality, and college preparation pretty much dominates the rest of the time, so I haven't had to think about what happened that night on the cruise ship, or the last time I saw my Mom or Dad or Kayla, or what happened to Chase. I never even found out his last name, so how could I ask about him? It was a mystery I would probably never know the answer to.

Cara and I decided a few weeks ago to go to Oregon State University in the fall, which means that we won't have to leave the state. We sent in our acceptance letters last Tuesday. Since we're far away from it, we'll have to move into an apartment or a dormitory, but I'm excited to go away. It'll mean I don't always have to be at this house that constantly reminds me of the fact that my family is gone.

Colton and Emma have been trying to distract me from all the looks I get, even from teachers. It's that stupid, puppy-dog sympathetic "oh-your-family-died-and-I-don't-know-you-but-I-should-pity-you" look. Completely ridiculous, in my opinion. If Kayla were here, she would be flipping the bird every which way. I don't have the guts to do that.

Right when I start to feel like maybe I can get through this, because Mom and Dad would want me to and because Kayla would kick my ass if I didn't, things start to break all over again. When the whispers come back into my head at night, when I'm sleeping, there is no way I can retain a rational thought. And those are the dangerous times.


End file.
